After spending my last day walking around the Botanic Gardens and Chinatown – Lau Pasat is closed for renovations – I spent the evening by the bay with one of my sister’s friends who works in the city. My cocktail was about 50% marshmallow and we shared a mix of breakfast nachos (they had scrambled egg), Parmesan fries and strawberry pancakes. We also took a super fast elevator to her office’s roof garden for spectacular views of the city. A good end to my adventures.

Of course, being me there was more drama to unfold…

Braving the MRT to the airport I was heavily questioned at customs because the last letter of my first name hadn’t quite fitted so they wanted to make sure I was who I said I was.

Finally on the plane, I started watching a film while we sat on the ground for an hour. Slightly worried about my connecting flight I persevered with ‘Broken’. It’s a good, if slightly odd, film, but the ending is pretty graphic. I started to feel sick and dizzy and needed some fresh air… Obviously this wasn’t likely on a plane.

Guess who got to experience an oxygen mask on a plane? Yup, little miss squeamish who faints.

So I spent the first hour of the flight (when the seatbelt sign was still on) laying on the floor of the aircraft with my feet on a box, with an oxygen mask over my face. Just another thing to take in my stride…

However, for the rest of the flight I was treated like a minor celebrity – the stewards brought me extra drinks and biscuits and the first officer came over several times to check I was OK.

After that I played it safe and watched Hercules and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Running out of time

By the time we landed in Dubai, my connecting flight was already boarding and it took ages to disembark. When the couple in front of me decided to have a full-on PDA in the plane aisle I almost stabbed them with my pen.

I ran off the plane, skirting the lady in a wheelchair and skidded to a halt in front of the man shouting “Gatwick? Istanbul?”, ranting at a fellow traveller – a maths PhD student at Oxford.

He and I chatted as about six of us were escorted through the airport to a special security point (one poor girl was then searched, even though there had been no time for us to change our bags’ contents since checks in Brisbane/Singapore).

Not only did we make it, but they held the plane to check our luggage had all been found. So this flight was also delayed… But on the plus side I was sitting just behind First Class and had a spare seat next to me.

The rest of the flight passed fairly smoothly (Pete’s Dragon, Shakespeare in Love etc.) and all too soon we were landing in Gatwick Airport, where both of my parents were waiting.

My dad dashed off to catch a train to London so my mum and I braved the rainy, flooded roads of England.